Junior dog handlers prep for Hampton dog show

Mark St. John Erickson, merickson@dailypress.com | 247-4783

If 11-year-old Mckenzie Dunford looks like a natural when it comes to handling show dogs, that's because she is.

Not only did she grow up in a family where champion Akitas are an integral part of life, but she also made her first appearance in the ring not long after being conceived. Her mom, Julie, still smiles as she recalls how she continued to compete through her pregnancy, logging her last show just a few weeks before Mckenzie's birth.

Even this precocious little veteran gets a bit nervous, however, whenever she takes her dog, Isabel, into the ring for another test of her ribbon-winning Junior Showmanship skills.

At barely 5 feet tall and maybe 85 pounds, the Hampton middle school girl is hardly bigger than the large, powerful animal she so deftly controls. And her most serious competition comes from handlers who are older and more experienced.

"Of course, I'm nervous," says Mckenzie, who will be among some 30 kids aged 9 to 18 contending in the Junior Showmanship class at this weekend's Virginia Memorial Day Cluster All-Breed Dog Show.

"You want to win so bad that you can't help being nervous. But it's always fun whether you win or lose."

Originally known as the "Children's Handling Class," the first formal dog handling competitions for young people were held in the early 1930s at the Westbury and Westminster kennel clubs in New York.

Unlike the traditional show classes, which focus primarily on the physical conformation of the dog, the entrants in the Junior Showmanship category are judged on their handling abilities alone.

Control and presentation are crucial as they move their animals around the ring and stage them before the judge, striving to show them to their best advantage.

"Junior Showmanship is harder for a lot of kids — because the judges have their eyes on you and not so much on the dog," says Jennifer Meermans Bottone, a James City County woman who became a licensed Junior Showmanship judge after competing in the class as a teen.

"So not only does your dog have to look good, but you have to look good, too."

Mckenzie began learning to handle Akitas at the age of 5, when she was still so small she could barely see over the animal's shoulders.

Looking back now, she confesses that she had some significant fears to overcome about the difference in size, especially when she first started.

"I was like — 'What!?!" she says, her eyes growing big and round.

"They were just so big and scary — and they had these really big teeth. But then I got used to them. They were my dogs. And I felt more comfortable making them pay attention."

Not everybody agreed with her parents' decision to put the little girl and the big dogs together.

But schooled by her mom and their friend Lynn Arnold, an Akita breeder and current president of the Langley Kennel Club, she soon learned how to move her charges confidently around the ring, then "stack" their tails, legs, necks and heads in ways calculated to both showcase their strengths and help hide their weaknesses.

Since entering her first competition at the age of 9, Mckenzie has advanced steadily in her class, winning numerous first-place ribbons with her Akitas. She's also developed a keen eye — and a lot of respect — for her older rivals, whose polish and experience usually enables them to dominate the best overall junior contests held at the end of every show.

"These kids spend hours in preparation and practice with their dogs — and then they get only 3 or 4 minutes to prove themselves," Meermans Bottone says, describing all the grunt work that goes into becoming a contender.

"So even though they're all usually really good dog show friends, they're cut-throat in the ring. They want to win."

James City County teen Travis Meermans — who is Meermans Bottone's nephew — learned all about the less-glamorous demands of the sport when he started competing a few years ago.

Even with what's known as a "wash-and-wear dog," the best handlers must pay close attention to grooming their animals according to AKC standards, his mom, Jeri, says. They also have to spend time polishing their own wardrobe and appearance — not to mention devoting hour after hour to socializing and training their dog for the ring.

That's required her 15-year-old son to develop a far greater sense of responsibility and commitment than many other kids his age. He's also had to learn the value of simple persistence.

"You have to go through your routines over and over again," Travis says, "until your dog understands you and knows exactly what you want him to do."

Such youthful perseverance has paid off in more than a dozen ribbons over the past 2 or 3 years. It's also led to a kind of confidence that now has little to do with winning or losing.

Unlike some other junior handlers, Travis has worked with both small and large dogs — and with both finished and relatively raw, only partly trained animals. He also knows what it's like to work with a nervous champion as well as a dog that's still untested and young.

"Every dog is different," he says, "but your job is always the same — to make them look their best.

"Sometimes that can be a little harder to do, but whenever you win, you really feel good. And if you don't, there's always another day. I'm just doing this to have fun."